(Attempted) Murder by Sugar Cookie

Don't take cookies from Pat Shindley's daughter

Photo by Cody Chan on Unsplash, modified by me.

Christmastime is when I get in touch with my inner Martha (Stewart— not the stalker lady from Baby Reindeer.)

I love to bake and have the equipment to prove it. Forty-nine stainless steel frosting tips to pipe everything from zigzag borders to fleur-de-lys. Collapsable cooling racks because when I bake, I bake dozens. Kitchen-Aids, candy thermometers, and muffin tins for days. I have made soufflés that don’t cave. I have CRUSHED molten lava cakes. I know cream of tartar is NOT a cream. I would be adopted by the Keebler Elves if I could fit in their tree.

So yeah, I can make cookies.

That is, until that bitch Pat Shindley came into my life.

“These sugar cookies are the first recipe my daughter ever asked for!” Pat claimed on a popular recipe site. “I make them every year for her to give out to friends!”

I trusted the Shindley women and because of that they almost ruined Christmas.

A Sugar Cookie Family History

I got my baking chops from my mama— the sugar cookie master. She made them every year at—and only at— Christmas. My brother and I loved the raw dough almost more than the cookie itself. Kids these days and their pathetic GI tracts don’t know the pure culinary delight that is RAW COOKIE DOUGH. Now it’s all unsafe and potentially harmful? PLEASE. Toughen up, kids! You don’t need a gallbladder anyway!

When my mom passed away I’d like to say she took her sugar cookie recipe with her, but that would be a lie. It was the Land O’ Lakes recipe, readily available by googling “sugar cookies” and also plastered on butter boxes near the holidays. It was also in my inbox and pinned to my HOLIDAY Pinterest board because she sent it to my brother and I several times a year in hopes she could finally get out of baking them. But we never let her. We wanted her cookies. The way she made them. Filled with butter, sugar, and a dash of resentment. There were so many other things she could be doing!

You Know What This Sad Family Needs?

I decided my family needed sugar cookies that first Christmas without my mom.

“I’m bringing Mama back! One dollop of softened butter at a time!”

“Don’t you dare,” my dad said. “Do not tarnish that woman’s reputation!”

“You can’t do it like she could,” my brother said. “Make rum balls instead.”

I knew they were right. Why enter a race you were sure to lose? (Besides some overcoming challenges, self-esteem, it’s about the experience, yada yada BS.) But we needed sugar cookies. If we didn’t have them, we might as well not have a Christmas tree, red and green M&Ms, our annual Cards Against Humanity Christmas Eve gaming session. (Because nothing says Happy Holidays like hearing your dad shout, “Warm Velvety Muppet Sex!” across a red and green gingham tablecloth.)

That’s when I discovered Pat Shindley and the famous cookies her daughter gifted to friends every year. Sure, I couldn’t make my mom’s cookies, but I could make someone else’s mom’s cookies. Pat’s cookies would become our new tradition! We would toast Ms. Shindley every Christmas Eve and thank her for giving us our holiday mojo back!

O Little Star of Bakinghem

I woke up early on baking day—a Christmas miracle onto itself. The cookie cutouts were laid out like dashboard instruments in a cockpit. I had the tree, the star, the stocking, and the Santa with his sack full of goodies. I even printed Pat’s recipe instead of reading it from my phone because this recipe would surely be one for the keepsake box and passed down to future generations. I rolled my sleeves once, twice, a third time before changing into short sleeves and got started.

In a large bowl I creamed, blended, whipped and folded the ingredients. As my fingertips sunk into the dough ball the size of a classroom globe, I was transported to a stranger’s living room, lit by a crackling fire, while generations of Shindley’s in matching snowflake sweaters hung fresh cut garland and sang It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas in perfect harmony. (Except Aunt Helen Shindley. She’s always off-key, but in a delightfully charming sort of way.) Little dough pellets of tradition literally clung to my fingertips. I heaved the dough globe out of the mixing bowl and swaddled it in plastic wrap with more tenderness than I when I nestled my newborn son to sleep.

The Dough and I…Just Chillin’ and Reflectin’

I used the downtime to reflect on not just my culinary prowess, but my altruistic spirit. Is this not the stuff Hallmark holiday movies are made of? Sad family gathers for the first time since the matriarch has passed. They try to don brave faces but it’s too hard without their mouths stuffed with sugar cookies. Until daughter brings new cookies and saves Christmas. She also writes a best-selling book. And saves a beloved small town, family-run, candy-cane themed B&B.

The dough glowed in the refrigerator like the brightest tree topper, shining afar through shadows dim. Was it possible it had doubled in size? No matter. I anticipated the outcome like a six-year-old on Christmas Eve, waiting for Barbie’s Dream House to drop down the chimney. (Okay, ten-year old. Maybe thirteen. I was a late bloomer, okay?)

Refrigeration completed, I placed the dough globe on a lightly floured sheet of parchment paper like it was the baby Jesus being laid in the manger. I rolled it to 1/8-inch thickness and cut it into desired shapes— the trees, the Santas, the stockings that clung to the rolling pin with care. I added another handful of flour. I gathered scraps of dough, formed more dough, rolled 1/8 an inch of dough. Placed dough gently on a cookie tray. Two batches came out of the oven, two went in. Timer set. Timer beeped. My wrist was getting tired but I had to persevere. Cut more shapes. Floured more dough. Did it really need to be 1/8 of an inch? I could really use a nap, but I thought of Santa’s elves, hammering and fastening and getting high off glue. Would they have kicked off their pointy shoes and taken a nap because their wrists hurt? No! I peeked in the oven and watched as my creations puffed to life. The stockings yearned to be filled, the Christmas trees begged for adornment, and Santa looked—interesting. Seven minutes in heat had turned Santa and his sack into more like Santa’s sack. Hmm…maybe reserve those for close friends.

O Come Let Us Adore the Miraculous Regenerating Dough!

Every time I ripped off a hunk of dough it grew back like a lizard tail. I started eyeballing 1/8-inch thickness figuring if they looked too perfect no one would believe they were homemade. Besides a thicker cookie means more cookie, which is never a bad thing. But I could barely keep up with the cookie contractions seven minutes apart. I had developed carpel-tunnel and hadn’t started decorating yet. I may never lift a fork again let alone baste the little bastards in cold milk and dust with colored sugar crystals.

I made this incredible piece of art. O come let us adore me.

I realized my mood was souring and decided perhaps tasting the fruits of my labor would add fuel to the festivity. I closed my eyes and bit into a pervert Santa because it’s bad enough to bite off Santa’s head, but so much worse when it looks like another part of his anatomy. My taste buds buzzed in anticipation.

I bit.

I chewed.

And chewed.

I continued to chew.

These weren’t sugar cookies! They were index cards!

I tried to spit them out, but they casted a mold around my front teeth.

I'm gagging! I thought. Who has cursed me???

I needed to spit, but COULDN’T OPEN MY MOUTH! The hardened dough globs were backing up! Goodbye, cruel world!

Plot twist! Grieving daughter tries to save Christmas for her family by making someone else’s mother’s special cookies and is found limp over a counter stool with seven broken ribs and a block of cement in her esophagus.

DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING, DID YOU?

Glad I wore my fanciest dress for the Sooners office holiday party! Image by Photo by James Forbes on Unsplash. Modified by me.

As my life flashed before me, it became very clear that unless she was looking for an organic method to hang wallpaper, Pat Shindley’s daughter had a lot of enemies. She’d use these cookies to exact revenge on everyone who’s ever wronged her—the dry cleaner who shrunk her favorite sweater, the backstabbing co-worker who brown-nosed her out of a promotion, the kitten-loving lawyer who never called after a really great first date. Really great! Pat Shindley’s daughter’s had a Christmas hit list.

No amount of colored cellophane and curling ribbon could pass those cookies off as edible. I had a skull sized ball of dough left and seventy-some misshapen, some-what pornographic sugar cookies that tasted like a second-grader’s art project. With a little ceramic paint maybe I could have given them away as coasters. The dough landed in the trash can with such a reverberating thump, the unused jars of red and green sugar crystals toppled, covering the only visible portion of countertop like a festive bruise.

I wanted to believe my family would be surprised by Pat Shindley’s betrayal, but when I presented five dozen rum balls wrapped in cellophane and curling ribbon they very audibly and collectively heaved a sign of relief.

“God bless us, everyone,” my brother said.

“Thank you, Jesus,” my dad wept.

“I almost died making you assholes cookies,” I said. “Just so you know.”

And that’s when we heard it. As hallowed as a herald angel singing. My mother’s voice belting right out of my mouth.

“Ahhhh!” my brother shrieked “You sound just like her! That’s what mom always said!”

My dad put his arm around me. “Good job. You did bring her back! But I don’t like rum balls, sorry.”

When your throat isn’t filled with a brick of congealed plaster (literally or figuratively), you may find the words to save Christmas. Pat Shindley’s cookies sucked, but that old bitch did bring my family a holiday miracle. Praying her daughter’s friends have the same fate.

XO,

Shelly

I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy New Year, and good tidings every day! As we round out this year, I want to extend my endless gratitude to all of you for reading, commenting, sharing, liking, and being a part of the Middle-Aged Lady Mom community. It’s been some of the most fun I’ve had and hope it brings you joy as well.

Cheers to a bright, happy, and healthy 2025!

XO,

Shelly

Want more holiday stories where I do stupid things and blame it on my mom dying? Here’s one!

A version of this post first appeared in The Seattle Times a million years ago. It’s been updated for today’s modern audience. But it sure was cool to be published in The Seattle Times!